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Tuesday, November 22, 2016

Who Is Mike Pence?

Many
who consider themselves conservative-minded Christians have put a lot of hope
in Gov Pence, that he will be able to steer the Donald Trump administration in
a direction that is agreeable with their worldview.But is that hope warranted?Probably not.

. . .

Indeed,
Pence's record, first as a member of Congress from Indiana for six terms, and
later as governor of the state, is a mixed bag at best. In Congress, as
measured on The New American
magazine's Freedom Index, which scores lawmakers based on their fidelity to the
U.S. Constitution they swear to uphold, Pence scored 62 percent. While better than most Democrats
and some establishment neocons and liberal "Republicans in Name Only"
(RINOs), the score is hardly impressive — especially considering the fact that
Pence, like all members of Congress, took an oath to defend the Constitution.
While it certainly could be worse, there are more than a few votes Pence cast
that should concern Trump supporters and all Americans.

During
his 12 years in the House of Representatives, Pence often voted to fund
globalist and neocon programs that are not authorized in the Constitution —
including supporting spending bills squandering ultimately trillions of
taxpayer dollars and running up massive trillion-dollar deficits for largely
unconstitutional purposes. Pence also voted reliably to fund the panoply of
globalist organizations, including the United Nations, the Export-Import Bank,
and more, that undermine U.S.
sovereignty and prosperity. The unconstitutional PATRIOT Act purporting to
allow unconstitutional spying on Americans received his support, too.
Incredibly, Pence even voted against an amendment that would have blocked the
purported authorization of indefinite military detention of American citizens
without trial. Why Pence thought Obama should be able to use the military to
detain Americans without trial was not explained.

On
matters of war, Pence has also sided with establishment globalists and neocons
rather than the Constitution. For instance, the then-congressman voted to
unconstitutionally surrender the power of Congress to declare war on more than
one occasion. First, he supported giving then-President George W. Bush
authority to wage an undeclared war against Iraq if and when the president
decided to do so — a war that Trump has opposed. Pence even voted against an
amendment to defund Obama's devastating and flatly illegal war against Libya, in which
Obama relied on a UN resolution instead of a congressional declaration of war.
As congressmen in both parties explained at the time, Obama should have been
impeached for that criminal and potentially
treasonous act alone. The fruits of those illegal wars are now clear, too,
yet Pence has not apologized for supporting them while in Congress.

Beyond
war, Pence has taken positions at odds with those of Trump and his supporters
on crucial issues animating his campaign. Even on illegal immigration and
amnesty, Pence has come under fire from key Trump supporters and boosters over
his positions. A decade ago, when the Bush-backed amnesty schemes were being
considered in Congress to legalize illegal immigrants, Pence responded with a
proposal that would have allegedly led to increased border enforcement and no
amnesty. Key opponents of amnesty, though, including Trump supporter and
conservative leader Phyllis Schlafly, criticized the plan. Pat Buchanan
lambasted Pence's proposal as “stealth amnesty.”

More
recently, Pence slammed Trump's popular proposal to temporarily ban Islamic
immigration as “offensive and unconstitutional” — a proposal that polls show is
supported by most Americans and the overwhelming majority of Republicans. It
was not immediately clear how many more Muslims Pence would like to see
immigrating to America, whether he thinks taxpayers should foot the bill for
the immigration, nor how (or if) he thought they should be vetted by
authorities for security and health concerns. However, Pence did attempt,
albeit half-heartedly, to block the joint UN-Obama administration importation
of “Syrian refugees” to be resettled in Indiana
at taxpayer expense.

On
national sovereignty-destroying “free trade” schemes such as the
Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the North American Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA), Pence has been a major cheerleader of globalism. “The time has
come for all of us to urge the swift adoption of the Trans Pacific
Partnership,” Pence declared on Twitter two years ago. By contrast, Trump has
strongly opposed the globalist deals, both due to the economic havoc they have
produced, and due to the surrender of national independence to transnational
bureaucracies they bring about. Indeed, opposition to the pseudo-“free trade”
regimes is a central plank of Trump's campaign and has earned him massive
support from conservatives and liberals.

In
supporting the globalist deals, Pence revealed that he does not appear to even
understand what form of government America has, urging fellow
lawmakers in 2005 to support Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) to
promote “a dream of democracy.” The founders of America, of course, established a
republic based on the rule of law, rather than a “democracy” based on the rule
of men, which they thought was a poor form of government. Infowars, which has
featured Trump as a guest on its popular and influential Alex Jones Show, compiled a massive list of pro-globalist “free trade” schemes
Pence voted to support while in Congress — and it is not pretty, at least
to those who value national sovereignty and support Trump's stated position on
the issue.

Perhaps
most controversial among recent actions by Pence has been his
shameful surrender on religious liberty — a crucial American value — during
his tenure as Indiana
governor. Last year, as homosexual and LGBT extremists were working to bulldoze
the First Amendment and force Americans to affirm homosexual “marriage” at
government gunpoint, Republicans in Indiana
passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The purpose was to protect
Christians and others from being coerced into participating in sinful
celebrations of faux “marriage” by, for example, having to bake
homosexual-themed cakes or produce flower arrangements that affirm homosexual
“weddings.”

At
first, Pence was supportive of the effort to protect religious liberty in the
face of an unconstitutional and fanatical assault against marriage and its
supporters by extremists on the Supreme Court, who defied their oath to the
Constitution and the truth by inventing a non-existent “constitutional right”
to homosexual “marriage.” “We are not going to change this law,” Pence declared
about the effort. However, as homosexual extremists and their allied bullies
among Big Business started shrieking and threatening, Pence quickly caved.

On
April 2, just one week after the bill was signed into law, Pence signed another
bill essentially reversing the religious freedom protections in the act and purporting
to force business owners to participate in the celebration of homosexuality at
government gunpoint. Religious freedom in Indiana was worse off afterward than when
the effort to protect it began — and Pence is largely to blame for
surrendering. That is bad news for Trump and for conservatives — especially
considering that Pence's primary claim to fame is his alleged “social
conservatism.”

Another
sign of trouble with Gov Pence is his confrontational stance towards Russia (which
is usually a sign that someone has ties to the New World Order).If Gov Pence were the strong Christian he
says he is, he would try to foster good relations with the Russians, who are
actually taking steps within their own borders and elsewhere in the world to
strengthen the Church, the family, and brotherhood among nations.But what do we see instead?Insults, lies, and warsome talk:

. . .

Hillary Clinton’s top priority when she became
secretary of state was the Russian reset. After the Russian reset, the Russians
invaded Ukraine and took
over Crimea. The small and bullying the leader
of Russia is now dictating terms to the United States to the point where all
the United States of America, the greatest nation on Earth, just withdraws from
talk about a cease-fire while that a mere Putin puts a missile defense in Syria
while he marshaled the forces and begins — look, we have got to lean into this
with strong, broad-shouldered American leadership that begins by rebuilding our
military…

. . .

About
Aleppo and Syria, I truly do believe that what America ought to do is
immediately establish Safe Zones so that families with children can move out of
those areas, work with our Arab partners real-time, right now to make that
happen. The provocations by Russia
need to be met by American strength. If Russia
continues to be involved in this barbaric attack on civilians in Aleppo, the US
needs to be prepared to strike military targets of the Assad regime, to prevent
them from this humanitarian crisis taking place in Aleppo.

There
is a broad range of other things we ought to do as well. We should deploy a
missile defense shield to the Czech Republic and Poland, which had Hillary Clinton
and Barack Obama pulled back on…

I
understand why you want to change the subject and let me be clear on this
Russians thing. What we are dealing with is — there is an old proverb that says
the Russian bear never dies, but hibernates. This foreign policy from Hillary
Clinton and Barack Obama has awakened a Russian aggression that first appeared
a few years ago with their move into Georgia
and Crimea and into the wider Middle East. All
we do now is full of our arms and say, “We are not having talks anymore.” We
need to marshal the resources of our allies in the region and end the immediate
— we need to act and act now to get people out of harm’s way…

The
safe zones would have to be, as the senator said, there is a framework that has
been recognized by the international community, but the United States
needs to be prepared to work with others in the region to create a route for
safe passage, and to protect people in those areas, including with a no-fly
zone.